


we're just a little bit of work

by jemmasimns



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimns/pseuds/jemmasimns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye had first begun to notice Simmons' strange behavior during their first movie night together, a tradition that had not ceased since. They had known eachother for quite a while then, maybe a few months or so, and Skye was glad to have a friend on board the ship. It wasn’t that she particularly disliked any of the other crew members, her jerk of an S.O. included, but Jemma and her had just… clicked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're just a little bit of work

Life as a shield agent was really unlike any other occupation, and Skye was not just referring to the frequent alien sightings.

There were things about the job that made relationships―or even friendships, for that matter―a bit of a different game. Your coworkers, whom you spent almost every living hour with, were not just your friends, but your _only_ friends. There was no time for “out-of-work” gatherings or high school reunions (not that Skye could attend, of course), so besides having their back at the workplace, you also ended up knowing them like the back of your hand.

Or so Skye had thought.

Skye had first begun to notice Simmon’s strange behavior during their first movie night together, a tradition that had not ceased since. They had known eachother for quite a while then, maybe a few months or so, and Skye was glad to have a friend on board the ship. It wasn’t that she particularly disliked any of the other crew members, her jerk of an S.O. included, but Jemma and her had just… _clicked_.

“I have to say, Syke, you have quite an interesting taste in film,” Jemma hummed, her eyes unwavering from the screen.

“What?” Skye responded, an eyebrow raised, “this is a _classic_ , Jemma.”

“Is it really?” Jemma replied innocently, finally looking away from the screen to look back at Skye, “American cinema astounds me.”

“I was kidding, idiot,” Skye rolled her eyes, still smiling; she punched Jemma comically in the shoulder, “if it’s _that_ bad, we can always watch something else.”

“Oh, no, no!” Jemma stuttered, looking at Skye with a frantic look in her eye, “It’s wonderful, truly―truly wonderful. I loved that part when, err, when that one big, hunky guy, punched the smaller, less hunky guy―”

“That scene could have summarized the whole film, Simmons,” Skye smirked, “we’re watching a documentary on _Captain America_.”

“Oh, well, yes,” Jemma nodded her head, a bit of an embarrassed blush creeping on her cheeks, “I couldn’t remember his name. I’m not really good with that type of thing.”

“You couldn’t remember Captain America’s name?” Skye gaped.

“Uh well, you see,” Jemma played with her fingers idly, trying desperately to make up an excuse, “the entrance exam into shield academy required a lot of historical study and all that, but, err, the Captain America files were under examination during that time, so they exempted him on the quiz.”

“Is everything you know based on a test you’ve taken?” Skye grinned disbelievingly. It was funny, she thought, how different they were; street smarts versus book smarts―it was quite the combination.

“Of course not,” Jemma argued, eyebrows furrowed, “I learned a lot on an internship at this bank, once.”

“An internship at a bank?” Skye giggled, her heart bubbling with something akin to adoration, “Only you could make that a _learning_ experience.”

“I’m sure you would have done the same, Skye,” Jemma humphed, “you would have probably hacked your way into millions of dollars, though, not done piles of paperwork.”

“Only millions of dollars? Simmons, you underestimate me.”

Jemma smirked, if a bit sweetly, and turned her head back to the movie in time to catch a shot of Peggy Carter on the screen, caught in a bit of an entanglement with one of her fellow agents.

“Wow,” Jemma spoke slowly, her eyes seemingly glazed over. Syke smirked curiously and turned her head to her new friend. To be honest, Jemma had, despite her best efforts, been slightly inattentive during most of the movie, but she seemed wholly absorbed now.

“Peggy Carter is absolutely _incredible_ , don’t you think?” Jemma grinned, her head snapping back to Skye’s, “I mean, she founded this very _agency.”_

“Didn’t you say Captain America wasn’t on the entrance exam?” Skye joked, observing the curious light in Jemma’s eye as she talked about the woman. It was the same kind of light she had when she talked about ectoplasms, or organisms, or ecto-plasinisms; well, Skye corrected herself, it was _almost_ the same.

“Oh, yes yes, he wasn’t,” Jemma nodded eagerly, “but Peggy Carter was a lot more than his romantic interest or whatnot, she was an agent herself, of course. She was a _founder_.”

Skye nodded, not wanting to admit that the information was slightly new to her. She had studied quite a bit about the history of shield―a prerequisite for learning how to hack into it, she might add―but she didn’t bother with all the little, sentimental details.

“Sorry,” Jemma dipped her head slightly, noticing her bubbling excitement, “I’m a bit of a rambler sometimes.”

“It’s alright,” Skye chuckled, “we all have our fangirl moments.”

Jemma seemed to freeze up a bit, then, as if someone had just given her some kind of fatally horrible news.

“Oh, I’m not―of course I’m not―I’m not a _fangirl_ ,” Jemma chuckled awkwardly, playing with her hands again, “she is just such an inspiration. An inspiration, yes! I look up to her deeply. I mean, I’m not saying she isn’t beautiful―ah, err, she’s just very, motivationally inspiring.”

Skye raised an eyebrow, her mind focusing in a bit on Jemma’s abrupt confession, “I didn’t say anything about her not being pretty, Jem.”      

“You didn’t?” Jemma gulped, her face a hot red. Before Skye could interrogate her further, though, Jemma quickly turned up the volume on the screen and faced away from Skye, refusing to look her in the eye for the rest of the night.

Skye hadn’t thought about it much, then, but the strange behavior continued. It came in bursts or sometimes subtleties, often taking the form of quiet, polite interrogations about Skye’s personal life.

“So… you and Ward, hmm?” Jemma had said one day, chuckling awkwardly to hide her very apparent nervousness. To be honest, Skye had forgotten Jemma was even there to begin with. It had been a pretty hectic day on the job―an artifact of unknown origin had appeared in Saudi Arabia―and Skye had just gotten back on the bus, nursing what was nearly a gunshot wound.

“Huh?” Skye asked, turning her head to face Jemma. They were sitting on a couch somewhere on the second floor of the Bus, and to be honest, Skye wasn’t completely sure how long Jemma had been sitting there with her.

“Oh, I just thought, um,” Jemma looked down at her hands, then up at Skye again, “I saw you and Ward getting back on the Bus earlier, and…”

“ _Oh_ ,” Skye said, realization dawning on her. Their return to the airship wasn’t the most delicate of things. Skye’s parachute had given in halfway through the drop down, and Ward had to clumsily haul her onto his back during the five hundred foot drop. In the end, it made for a very interesting looking piggy back ride.

“Since we’re friends and all, I just wanted to have all the, uh, details and things,” Jemma winced, embarrassed by her attempt at girl talk. Skye wasn’t sure how one person could be so endearing and awkward at the same time.

“There are no details, Jemma,” Skye laughed, “we just had a bad drop, is all. He had to pull me inside the ship.”

“Oh?” Jemma said, “Oh, of course. I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m so ridiculous, sometimes. Silly, ridiculous me.” She slowly raised herself from the couch, backing away from Skye with an odd look on her face.

“Are you alright, Jemma?” Skye asked, finding herself grinning at the girl’s antics.

“Dandy,” Jemma peeped, shaking her head as if she was resolving an internal conflict before speeding off back to her labs without much explanation.

It just worsened from there, Skye recalls. It went from occasional nervousness to downright ridiculous attempts at trying to deflect any and all questions relating to Simmon’s own romantic life. Even Fitz had no real answer for what was bringing on Jemma’s behavior, but Skye suspected that it was because Jemma had instructed him specifically to say so. As much as Skye liked playing detective, she eventually had reached a point where there was no skirting around the topic anymore.

So Skye did as any skilled agent would do: she set up an investigation.

“Jemma, what is _up_ with you?” Skye asked the following day, throwing her plans in the wind. She had quickly learned that an investigation, or at least what wikihow believed an investigation was, took time and patience. What Skye definitely did not pride herself in was time and patience.

“Hm?” Jemma quirked an eyebrow, looking away from a test tube she was studying to focus on Skye. It was quite early in the morning―atleast early enough that she didn’t have to worry about Fitz barging in the door to interrupt―and Skye was on a mission.

“Jem, come on,” Skye pleaded, “you know you’ve been off lately. If you tell me, maybe I can help you?”

“Off?” Jemma responded, bewildered. She slipped her goggles off her face and placed them on the desk next to her, leaving adorable, faint red lines around her eyes. Skye couldn’t help but giggle despite herself.

“You are _quite_ strange at five in the morning, Skye,” Jemma looked at her curiously, “speaking of that, why in the world are you up at five in the morning?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Skye answered, her speech a bit discombobulated; it was true, she was definitely not an early bird.

“Well, you could, but you’d know the answer,” Jemma shook her head, a certain smile on her lips that she only seemed to grow when Skye was around her, “I always get up around now, for peace and quiet and everything. You, on the other hand, do not usually wake until atleast the afternoon.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Skye laughed, finding herself distracted from her goal, “but I’m up because I needed to talk to you.”

“Oh,” Jemma repeated, suddenly feeling a bit out of place. The lab surroundings usually calmed her, made her feel like she was at home, but something about Skye’s abrupt appearance made all of that seem very distant. It wasn’t that she didn’t welcome her interruption―she practically went out of her way for excuses just to talk to Skye―but she felt like she had no place to flee to, now. There was no where to run from what she may be feeling.

“What’s up, Jem, really?” Skye’s eyes bore into Jemma’s own, unending caring and confusion. Jemma felt horribly sick at the other girl’s words.

“Mm―nothing, nothing that I can recall,” Jemma stuttered, “could you be more specific, maybe?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Skye scratched at her head, her brain obviously hindered by the time of day, “I mean you’re just all over the place sometimes. Like, when we hung out last week, you know? When we were talking about Ward and everything? You were, like, so nervous.”

“Oh,” Jemma squeaked, a single line of panicked thoughts running through her mind, “you know me, I’m just a ditz.”

“Not that much of a ditz, Jemma,” Skye said, inching towards her. Jemma’s breath hitched, noticing how close Skye was now. It was a friendly distance, but all Jemma could think about was how easily she could cup her cheek, pull her down―

Jemma looked down at her feet, wondering just how much of the truth she was ready to tell Skye. She knew she had been distant, and dealing with these kinds of feelings was really never her forte.

“To be honest, Skye,” Jemma played nervously with her fingertips, biting at her lip, “I was nervous to tell you about, err, me.”

“You?” Skye asked, confused.

“I’m―uh, I’m bisexual,” Jemma whispered. Her entire stature lowered, as if the tiny confession had simultaneously taken a weight off her shoulders and replaced it with an anvil.

“Wait, really? That’s it?” Skye questioned, disbelievingly, “Jemma…”

“Are you alright with that?” Jemma said, her voice small but hopeful.

“Jemma, duh,” Skye rolled her eyes, “I mean, it’d be kind of weird of me if I wasn’t.”

“What?”

“I’m bi, too, you dork,” Skye rolled her eyes, but Jemma just stood there, frozen in space, feeling as if the world itself had just turned from beige to bright blue, white to glorious red.

Needless to say, Skye had been sure that their conversation would have put an end to Jemma’s odd behavior, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. It was different now, though―it went from naive, personal questions to a more physical state. Sometimes all they would have to do is touch hands while reaching into the same popcorn bowl and Jemma would spend the rest of the night with a shade of red on her cheeks, keeping both her hands safely knitted in her lap. Skye had tried to get through her walls, she really did, but Jemma insisted it was really nothing. And Skye believed her, well, that was until Skye got shot.

“I _need_ to check her vitals, Fitz,” Jemma spoke harshly, rummaging around with what sounded like a menagerie of delicate medical tools. Skye’s vision was still fuzzy, a bit like looking through the wrong side of a magnifying glass, but she made out the lines of her face, still. She could see the crease of Jemma’s brow, the way she worried her lip under her teeth. Things were coming back in flashes of different colors, first whites and blacks, but then with detailed, bloody reds. She saw herself gasping for air, nursing a bullet in her shoulder―then Jemma, oh _Jemma_ , cupping her cheek and kissing at her hair, holding her like she was the most delicate thing in the world.

“Simmons, Simmons look! ‘Er eyes are open!” Fitz said, pointing towards Skye. Skye heard Jemma gasp, then the clatter of metal, and finally hands around her torso, hugging her.

“ _Skye_ , you idiot, you bumbling, foolish―” Jemma said, her breath hitching. Skye could feel warm, gentle tears melt into the fabric of her shirt. Her arms felt stiff and unmoving, but she found that the only thing she wanted to do was to return Jemma’s hug. To tell her she was fine, that everything was going to be okay.

“J’mema,” Skye blurted out, her words as scrambled as her thoughts. Things were blurry, still, but she was determined, “J’mema, m―it’s, J’mema, it o’ay.”

Jemma raised her head from Skye’s chest, finding herself suddenly unable to speak. Skye, finding that her words were betraying her, settled on nudging Jemma’s head against hers with what little strength she had, meeting their foreheads.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Jemma whimpered, staring into Skye’s eyes, tears in her own, “if you were gone… I… I don’t know what I’d do.” Before Skye could reply, however, footsteps stormed the room and she found her senses overloaded with new information. Skye heard jumbled voices, and Jemma’s lips turned into an understanding frown and she removed herself from Skye before Skye could protest, and then things were dark again.

When Skye woke up the second time, things were quieter.

The only sound in the room was the buzzing of the various medical machines. She looked down at her body weakly, but with much more strength than before, and grimaced at the cuts in her skin from the many IVs and oxygen lines that had been inside her skin only a week earlier. Her vision much clearer now, she surveyed the room and found a bundled up girl sleeping on one of the chairs surrounding her bed. Curious at to the identity of her visitor, Skye leaned over her bed and removed one of the blankets on top of the girl’s head.

“Jemma,” Skye breathed out, finding herself smiling for the first time in what might have been months. The girl responded with a hiccup that soon morphed into a gentle snore, and Skye felt a powerful vein of adoration running through her. Foreign feelings felt their way up Skye’s spine, leaning her forward and towards the girl, moving away her hair and stroking her cheek. With barely a thought, Skye leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jemma’s forehead, sighing.

“Skye?” Jemma’s eyes sleepily drifted open, sleep marking the corners of her eyes. Skye moved backwards suddenly, fumbling accidentally out of her bed and landing partially on the floor, her legs still wrapped under the tight covers.

“Ouch,” Skye said teasingly, scratching at the subtle pain in the back of her skull.

“Oh my god, _Skye,_ ” Jemma said, groaning and launching herself out of the chair to help Skye back into the bed. She guided her hand under Skye’s head, lifting her back onto the pillow with a grunt, “you are literally the worst patient.”

“But easily the most attractive patient,” Skye joked, wiggling her eyebrows. Her life threatening coma had somehow given a boost to her sense of humour.

“Shut up,” Jemma said, smiling despite herself. She sat next to Skye on her bed, leading her hand up to Skye’s forehead to feel her temperature.

“How hot am I, doctor?”

“Deathly,” Jemma grumbled under her breath, unable to stop the redness on her cheeks, “I should call Fitz back in here. You definitely need to be looked at.”  


“No, wait―Simmons,” Skye said seriously, dropping her joking tone, “I’m fine, really. I just want to talk to you.”  
  
“Oh,” Jemma said, sitting back down, “oh.”

“Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Jemma laughed, a dopey smile on her face, “Of course. You are the one who was just in a coma for a month, if you forgot. Not me.”

Skye shook her head, holding Jemma’s gaze, “Not what I meant.”

Jemma’s smile dropped to a curious frown, “I don’t see why I wouldn’t be.”

Skye sighed, rubbing at her temples. Deciding talking wasn’t the greatest way to get to Jemma, she slid her hand on top of the other girl’s, holding it delicately in her own. Jemma’s eyes grew, unsure how to respond.

“Skye…?”

Skye shook her head again, her own nervousness blockading her from doing much else. She instead opted for squeezing Jemma’s hand, entangling their fingers together in a way that made her body feel calmer than it had in months.

“I know it’s hard, Skye,” Jemma responded, seemingly missing the intent of Skye’s actions, “you’ve been through so much.”

“It’s not that, Jemma, I―” Skye blew out a breath, closing her eyes and then opening them again, “whenever we’re together, you seem so distant around me. Like you want to be around me, but just being there _haunts_ you. I just want to know what I’m doing; what I’ve done wrong.”

“Oh my god, no, no,” Jemma sputtered, subconsciously moving herself towards Skye, reaching to take the girl’s other hand, “I adore hanging out with you, Skye. You’re really one of my dearest friends.”

“Then why?” Skye said, her head dipped towards the bed, her voice small. A sad smile painted itself across Jemma’s face, no longer nervous, but a bit of something else.

“I’m a real bugger, aren’t I?” Jemma laughed to herself bitterly, causing Skye to look up. Their faces seemed so close now, with the sense of alarm gone. Skye felt as Jemma let go of Skye’s hands, instead slipping them around Skye’s neck and moving in to embrace her tightly.

“You’re very special to me, Skye,” Jemma admitted, whispering into Skye’s ear, “I guess I’m often afraid that if I do the smallest thing wrong―skew the smallest detail―I’ll lose you.”

“You’d never lose me, Jem,” Skye rolled her eyes, hugging the girl back and linking her own arms around the other girl’s chest, pulling their bodies flush to each other. Jemma slowly removed her face from Skye’s neck, turning it sideways to press her lips to Skye’s cheek, kissing it. Skye’s body felt like it was on fire.

“Do you mean that?” Jemma whispered against Skye’s cheek, barely separating her lips from it.

“Duh,” Skye smiled, and Jemma nodded, finally releasing her grip on Skye’s back and turning to face her head on, eyes boring into her. Something about Jemma’s gaze was different this time, Skye remembered thinking, it wasn’t nervous or scared―just blissfully content. Before she could go on, however, Jemma leaned into her and pressed a kiss to the bridge of her nose, her smile only growing.

“Jemma―”

“I _like_ you, Skye,” Jemma admitted, her tone small but determined, “that’s my god forbidden secret.”

Like in a flash, Skye heard her heart meter beep suddenly, rising and steadying and rising again. Jemma had closed her eyes, her expression tranquil. Despite how damningly close they were, the only thought Skye could think was how _oblivious_ she truly was. How all this time she thought she had done something horribly wrong, when it was really just the opposite.

“I like you, too, Jemma,” Skye spoke, finally able to conjure up the words, “and if you don’t kiss me I might just die for _real_ this time.”

Jemma giggled against Skye’s nose, laughing that light and free one that she only really shared in those quiet moments in front of the television screen, or in the middle of an experiment. Moving her head softly downwards, she leaned in ever more and captured Skye’s lips in her own, sighing out as if the weight of the world had been released off her shoulders.

“Wow,” Skye said, their lips finally parting after several minutes.

“Wow,” Jemma laughed, “you’re a good kisser, for an American.”

“I bet Peggy Carter would think so.”  
  
“Oh my god―”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Skye grinned, and for the first (or maybe the second or third) time, Jemma just did.

           


End file.
